By Joyce Deuley

Who doesn’t get a little nervous when driving on the highway behind big trucks? If you’ve been in Texas, on Interstate 35, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Major highways are prime areas of risk because of the amount of large trailer and Big Rig traffic—drivers in smaller vehicles that happen to get stuck behind these behemoths often have difficulty judging whether or not it is safe to pass, resulting in accidents, injuries, and sometimes fatalities.

It seems Samsung has come up with a solution to make things much easier—and safer too! Its Safety Truck has a large screen on the back roll-top door, allowing fellow drivers to get a “window” view of what’s going on ahead and around the vehicle. They can then make better decisions on whether or not they’re in the “all clear” to pass. This new feature has the ability to not only save large companies and individual drivers from the liabilities associated with accidents, but can also help save lives. Additionally, the Safety Truck is supposed to prevent sudden braking and animal-related accidents. Samsung developed this because of the number of accidents in Argentina from passing on two-lane roads (Business Insider).

Even more than that, with connected technologies and video behavioral monitoring technologies becoming even more sophisticated, Samsung’s Safety Truck technology could be used to help report accidents in real time. Or, perhaps used very similarly to dash cams or UBI driver behavior trackers. Since, driverless vehicles are meant to roll out within the next five years, what if automotive manufacturers also included video screens to the back of their large trucks, human-related accidents associated with driverless vehicles could be dramatically reduced (ABC NEWS).

But, is this technology too good to be true? There are a few technicalities that need to be considered before this is endorsed wholesale: primarily whether or not this will lead to more distracted drivers. I think we can agree that the Safety Truck is somewhat of a novelty at this point, which may prove detrimental to its original mission as drivers could become heavily distracted wanting to get a better view of it. Additionally, would drivers behind the truck notice when it is braking if they are too busy trying to figure out how to come around it? And, what about tailgating? Are drivers going to tailgate more since a large vehicle will no longer obstruct their “view”? Will the truck drivers know that the other vehicles will be following so closely or will their reaction time be affected, as following cars will be able to whip around them more rapidly?